Lifelong Republican yearns for a reboot of the party
The moment of truth is upon us. In a few short weeks we will vote for a president to lead the nation out of four years of chaos and corruption. Of the 45 presidents we have had so far, there have been some better than others, even great ones such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt but we have never had anyone even close to Donald Trump. In this he can claim to be a winner. In a 2013 Gallup Poll, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton headed the list of best recent presidents while the worst were Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. The criteria were presidential achievements, leadership qualities, failures, faults. A later different poll placed Donald Trump at the bottom, where he will safely rest for the rest of history.
How did we get from there to here, what could possibly make a sufficient number of people to vote him in office and give him another term knowing what everybody now knows about him? Trump has shown himself to be a liar, womanizer, adulterer, racist, friend of dictators, selfish, egotistical, greedy, cheat, bully, a conniver, corrupt — using his office to profit his hotels, Ivanka’s business and the White House itself for his campaigning. His friends are either in jail or being prosecuted. Everything about Trump is about Trump. He lacks sympathy and certainly no empathy. He has never placed himself in the shoes of another person in distress.
For the South and Midwest, Trump was the right man at the right time. Rural and small town people had long been forgotten by the city elites who looked down on them as semi-illiterates and as Hillary Clinton called them “a basket of deplorable.” Trump preached he was the man at long last who would stick with them and bring them back to the front row. And they fell for it. What was strange was that these farmers and small town people, many Evangelicals who faithfully go to church, believe in family values and old-fashioned morals live the opposite of Trump’s lifestyle with three wives and mistresses in between. They desperately needed to be fooled. Trump made a good guess as to what would please them: stop immigrants from coming over the border, appeal to their hidden racism by cozying up to white supremacists and urging governors to use force to block black protests, play down police brutality against people of color, pack the courts with super conservative judges and turn the Senate into robots falling in line behind him. His tight grip on the senators and other Republican politicians is frightening.
The usual response to his vulgar rhetoric is that “we don’t like what he says but we like what he does.” This means throwing out the window all values and morals that made America great because it constantly works to improve from the days of the signing of the Constitution to the end of slavery, the right to vote for everyone including women, gay rights and much more ... all based on values.
Friends wonder why I remain a lifelong, registered moderate Republican and I can’t blame them given that Republicans worship such a deeply flawed man as Trump. My reason is hope, hope that the party, post Trump, will return to its original form, end its cult-like behavior and see Democrats as competition, not enemies. I hope the future holds young Republicans in the cast of Reagan, Gerald Ford (who healed the country after Watergate), George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. All were known for their integrity and values. And let’s remember that the Republican party was founded by Lincoln, the Great Healer. I think he would smile as I cast my vote for Joe Biden.
Greenwich resident Carla Wallach is an author of five books and writer of numerous articles in national publications. Her latest book, “In The Company of Originals,” is available at Amazon.